Trash Talk and Wrapping It Up

Friday we watched a video clip from the TED talks by Charles Moore about the plastic trash that is ending up in our oceans. You can see it here: The Great Pacific Trash Island. We keep generating more and more plastic and our recycling efforts are not keeping up with it. We looked at the anatomy of an landfill at the How Stuff Works website. Modern landfills are designed to seal away our wastes so that it won't contaminate our water supplies and to safely vent off methane gas, that is a significant greenhouse gas. We looked at maps of the Orange County Landfill and discussed the history and the current issues surrounding the future of this site. We compared this to the Puente Hills Landfill that takes most of the garbage for Los Angeles, at 1300 acres, it is one of the largest in the US.
Monday and Tuesday we are putting the finishing touches on our projects, "It Costs What?" These are due on Wednesday, December 14th.

Project Work on "It Costs What?"

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we worked on our projects. We have been researching the sources of the materials used in manufacturing our products and the resources consumed and pollution created at each step. Products that are being researched include breakfast cereals, chocolates, lipstick, shoes, coffee and tea drinks, violin bows, and basketballs. These projects should be finished up by this weekend and then will be presented on Wednesday, December 14th.

The stories of our stuff

Today we read from "Confessions of an Eco-Sinner," by Fred Pearce. In this book he goes to the source of some of his food, clothing, materials and the energy that he uses most days. We read about cotton production in Australia, the US and Uzbekistan, the three largest producers in the world. In particular we learned about how much water is used to make a tee shirt (33 bathtubs worth!) and the pesticides used to grow cotton (one quarter of all pesticides used on crops in the US). We also read about the plight of the banana and how it is facing eventual extinction from disease unless we find a new source of genetic diversity to build up its resistance to these threats. This lead to more stories about the limited varieties of the foods that we eat and the need to preserve genetic diversity in order to have healthy food supplies. The readings sparked some good discussions about genetically modified foods, the use of animals in research and synthetic versus natural materials for clothing. We will continue to research our stories of the stuff we use (It Costs What?) and these poster projects will be due on Wednesday, December 14th.

Friday we watched most of a documentary called, "T-Shirt Travels" about the used clothing market in Africa. It followed the story of a young man in Zambia who buys a bale of used clothing from the US and sells it in his hometown in order to make a living. It turns out that the number one export from the US to Africa is used clothing and this has had a big impact on the economies of African nations. It follows up on the story of our t-shirts and what happens to them after we drop them off at used clothing places like the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Here is a link to a summary on PBS: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/tshirttravels/film.html

Here is a link to where you can click on each stage of the travels of a t-shirt as it makes its way from US charity bin to African marketplace:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/tshirttravels/track.html

"It Costs What?" Projects

We have been working on our "It Costs What?" projects today and on Tuesday. Yesterday the 4th years went on a field trip to the NC Museum of Life and Science to see the RACE Exhibit. Check out their website about the exhibit at NCMLS.org. The exhibit looks at race from cultural and scientific viewpoints.
The "It Costs What?" project is looking at an everyday object like a tee shirt and tracing its path from natural resources to finished product that we buy in a store. Along the way different resources are used and pollution is created, these are the hidden costs of the product. Students are working individually and in pairs to research their products and then will create a poster of their findings. Here is the project outline and rubric.  Last Monday we did a values line up called "Where do you stand?" in which I read a statement and then we lined up according to how strongly we agreed or disagreed with the statement. This sparked some good discussions. Here are the questions, we had time for 4-5 of them. We finished that day listening to a radio program from the show "Marketplace" from American Public Media about a "Well traveled Breakfast." The author traces the sources of the foods that his family eats on a typical morning. You can listen to the story and read about it here: Marketplace, A Well Traveled Breakfast.

It Costs What?

Today we went over the reading, "It Costs What?" and outlined the different parts of the world involved in the making of the shirt and the resources used and pollution created. We filled out this chart to help us map everything: "It Cost What-Chart". We talked about the reasons that a shirt is still so cheap after traveling so far. This leads into a short project that looks at resources and pollution. Tomorrow is our last class before the Thanksgiving break.

Bird Project Presentations Wrapped Up

Thursday and Friday we finished presenting our Bird Study Projects. Most of them went really well. Some of them were frustrated by the weather and by squirrels. Everyone was able to come up with something that they could work with. A few projects are still working on some challenges with formatting their wiki pages.
We started reading a short story about a t-shirt and its origins as raw materials. "It Costs What?" The rest of the reading is for homework, due on Monday, November 21st.

Peer Review

Monday and Tuesday we are doing peer reviews of each other's work. We are using the forms in the Investigator's Journal on pages 20 and 21 to guide us in giving constructive feedback to our rough drafts. Each person will give feedback to at least 2 people in their study group. And they will get feedback from the other folks in their study group. This gets everyone to look critically at other projects and to get ideas for how to improve their own project. We will spend these two days polishing our wikipages and preparing for our presentations on Thursday, November 17th.

Coming towards the end

We are getting close to finishing our bird investigations. Everyone is wrapping up their research, compiling data, making charts and graphs and formating their wikipages. By the beginning of next week everyone should have their reports just about finished. The rough drafts are due that Monday, November 14. They will then give feedback to their study/research teams and make the final improvements. Presentations will start on Thursday, November 17th. Tuesday we looked at four different types of graphs, from the Resource Page handouts, pp. 16-21. We looked at Pie charts, Bar graphs, Line graphs and Scatter plots and when to use each type.

Data Collection Week

This week we have a limited number of classes due to the block week schedule and the 4th year trip to see the documentary film on Thursday. So we only meet 3 times this week. Everyone should be set up to collect their data this week and come in on Monday, November 7th with all of their data collected so that they can start analyzing it and making graphs and charts to show their results.

Fake Cats and Fair Experiments

Picture from Bird Sleuth Resource Pages. Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Today we looked at an experiment that was done by a middle school student in Oregon. It is on pages 8 & 9 in the Resource Pages from Bird Sleuth. She took a stuffed cat and placed it next to her bird feeder to see if it would scare the birds and keep them from visiting the feeder. We used her investigation to see if it was designed in a way that was fair and was actually testing her hypothesis. This will hopefully help us set up our experiments and investigations in a way that will get us closer to answering our own questions about birds. Everyone should be ready to start their investigations by Monday, October 31st at the latest. If they can start sooner, that is even better. They should run their experiments and systematic observations for at least 5 days in order to gather some good data. If they are looking at data from some of the online resources this will give them enough time to sort through what is out there figure out what they need to look at more closely.

Hypotheses and Variables

We have been working on our bird projects this week. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we will have the laptop lab and will work on updating our wiki pages and giving our research teams feedback on their projects. Monday we went over how to form hypotheses along with our guiding questions about birds. We looked at how the hypothesis needs to be based on a reasonable and educated guess about what we think might be happening. How we set up our investigations are very important so that we can collect data that will either support or reject our hypotheses. We used resources from the BirdSleuth curriculum from the Cornell Ornithology Lab. Here is a Googledoc link to the Resource Pages. We used page 5 "Hypothesis Help."
Tuesday we used the information on pages 6 and 7 of the Resource Pages to help us understand the differences between Independent Variables, Dependent Variables and Control Variables when setting up an experiment. And how to show our results graphically. We used the graphs on the front pages of the Resource Pages and the Investigator's Journal for practice. Each student got a copy of the Investigator's Journal and handouts of the Variables page. On Page 4 of the Investigator's Journal we practiced identifying Independent and Dependent variables and how we might measure them.
They will need their final question, hypothesis and methods and materials figured out by this Friday, October 28th. All this will need to be posted on their wiki page.
We went over the checklist and timeline for the project as well. The final project will be finished by November 15th and shared in an oral presentation on November 17th.

Wiki Wiki Word

Today we got onto the class bird project wikispace and most every student created their individual pages. Check out the page: cfsbirds-2011.wikispaces.com/ The computers were slow, but we eventually all got logged in, joined the wiki and created a page. Most students began posting their preliminary questions as well. These questions will guide our bird studies. The wiki has a resource page that has lots of good sites for finding data on bird migration times, distributions, and maps of seasonal movements. There are also links to pages about individual species of birds and how to make simple bird feeders. We will break up into study/review teams soon to help us develop our projects as we work on these over the next 4 weeks.

M&Ms and Graphing

Monday and Tuesday we spent some time reviewing how to use Excel to enter data and make graphs. Each student got a "fun pack" of M&Ms. After predicting which color would be the most prevalent, they counted up the totals, made tables and created three different graphs. They had to make a pie chart, a bar graph and a graph of their choice. Here is the handout: Candy Graphing. Hopefully this will refresh their memories on how to use Excel and how to choose appropriate graphs for showing different sets of data. We are getting ready to start our bird studies and graphing is going to be an important part of their projects.
Last Thursday we wrote up our stream study reports. Overall that section of New Hope Creek was pretty healthy.

New Hope Creek Field Trip

Today 1st and 3rd periods went to the Johnston Mill site on New Hope Creek. We tested the water for temperature, pH, Nitrates, Nitrites, and Phosphates. We flipped over rocks and collected stream invertebrates to identify and to help us determine the quality of the water. We also collected minnows, crayfish, and frogs. The weather was a little cool and the water levels were low, but we were able to find quite a few creatures. Tomorrow 2nd period will be going and doing the same thing.

Review Quiz and prep for Field Trip

Today we had a review quiz on some of the things that we have been studying. Here is a copy of the quiz. Eco Quiz #2. We tried to answer all the questions on our own without looking at our notes. Then we shared what we had with our table mates and after a discussion made revisions. Then we went over it as as group and fixed it as needed. Tomorrow and Wednesday we have block schedule and will be going on a field trip to New Hope Creek to study the health of the stream and to see what sorts of creatures live there. Dress warmly and wear shoes. No sandals or flip flops.

Rotting Log Investigations

Log Poking Technique

Mushroom

Beetle grub and mycilia

Thursday we went out into the woods behind school and poked around the rotting logs. Bug spray was provided to those who wanted it and only one tick was spotted. We looked for decomposers and used a field guide to identify the creatures that we found. We found termites, fungi, ants, spiders, centipedes, millipedes, crickets, wood roaches, slugs, snails, grubs and many other types of soil decomposers and the creatures that prey upon them. Here is the field guide that we used: Soil Decomposers.

Milipede

Egg in a basket fungi

Nutrient Cycling and Decomposers

Tuesday we played a game that models how nutrients cycle through an ecosystem. The nutrient cycle game has you model the path of an atom as it moves from one organism to another and in and out of the nonliving parts of the system. Draw cards to find out if you are eaten, eliminated or broken down by different organisms. We looked at how matter continues to be recycled and can move slowly or quickly depending on the circumstances. We went through the reading "Decay and Renewal" and added notes about the 10% rule, that says only ten percent of the energy consumed by an organism is available at the next trophic level. We looked at an identification sheet for Stream macroinvertebrates to give us a better sense of what sorts of decomposers live in a stream and to prepare us for our field trip next week. We will be going to the Johnston Mill site on New Hope Creek on Tuesday and Wednesday, during the block week schedule.
Check out this cool time lapse video of dermestid beetles (carrion beetles) eating a dead mouse and a dead sparrow: http://www.exploratorium.edu/traits/mouse.html

Tree Scavenger Hunt

Today we went outside with Field Guides to the Trees of North Carolina and identified as many trees as we could in half an hour. We took sample leaves and taped them into our Science Journals along with their common and scientific names for future reference. Some of the trees that we identified included: Loblolly Pine, Red Maple, Sweet Gum, Black Cherry, Persimmon, Eastern Hophornbeam, and Eastern Red Cedar. This is part of our ongoing effort to get to know the members of our local community or organisms. Next week during Block Schedule we will take a field trip to New Hope Creek to sample water quality by looking at the stream invertebrates. New Homework: Finish Reading Handout "Decay and Renewal" and answer Questions on Decay and Renewal. Due Thursday, September 29th. Check out this cool website that helps you identify trees by their leaves. It works on Iphone and Ipad as well. Leafsnap.

Thursday and Friday

Thursday I was at a teacher workshop. Tonie Lilley was my sub. They read articles about the parachuting cats of Borneo in the 1950's and mapped out the relationships between the organisms involved. See the article in Google Docs: Parachuting Cats. They read another story about the Lemmings of Norway and how their populations fluctuate every 4 years. They discussed these stories in small groups and answered some reflection questions. Friday when I returned we reviewed the materials and read another story about the relationship between Lynx and Hares in Northern Canada. We looked at graphs that show the fluctuations over time and how they eventually balance out every ten years.

Photosynthesis with Starbursts

We used starburst candies and toothpicks to model the chemical reaction of photosynthesis. We made 6 Carbon dioxide molecules and 6 Water molecules following the rules for chemical bonding (4 bonds for Carbon, 2 bonds for Oxygen, 1 bond for Hydrogen). Then we rearranged the atoms to make one Glucose molecule (C6H12O6) and 6 Oxygen molecules. We went over the formula for photosynthesis and used our reading as a guide for building the molecules. Check out the worksheet that we used: Photosynthesis. I will be at a teacher workshop all day Thursday and Tonie Lilley will be my sub for the day. We will be looking at population dynamics on Thursday.

Notes on Decay, Matter and Energy

Today read out loud about biodegradation: how decomposers return nutrients to the soil, water and air. We revisited our earlier reading about how energy and matter move through the food web and took notes about these topics. See the notes in Google Docs: Decay, Energy and Matter. Assigned New Homework: Read handout "Biodegradation"pages 3-9, no questions to answer. Due Friday, September 23.

Monday, September 19. Food Web Game Again.

Monday we traded our new and improved games and got to try out what other teams had created. Each team then evaluated these new versions of the game and gave feedback to the creating team. The form that we used looked like this: Food Web Game: The New Version. Each group was then able to both give and receive feedback on their modifications. The goal of the changes was to make the model of a food web more realistic and to emphasis the relative importance of each part of the web. This sort of peer review is something that we will be practicing all year.

Thursday and Friday, Sept 15 & 16

Thursday we had our quiz about food webs. Check it out on Google docs: Eco Quiz #1. We then went over some of the details in the reading and focused on how top level carnivores are fewest in number and at the greatest risk when there is a disruption to the food web. We learned about DDT use in the last century and how it increased in concentration as it moved up the food chain. This had the biggest impact on the osprey and pelicans and almost pushed them to extinction.
Friday we worked on modifying the food web game to make it better. Here is the worksheet that we used to record our changes and our evaluations of this new version: Food Web Game: Make it Better.

Food Web Connections Game

Today we played a card game that models food webs and the connections between organisms. Each student was dealt a hand of organism cards. The goal was to build a food web with 5 levels, from decomposers, to producers, to primary, secondary, and tertiary consumers. They drew from a pile of cards to add to their web and mixed in were cards that forced them to do different things, some of them beneficial and others that were not. For example they may get to take a producer from someone else's web or they may have to give away a consumer. If at any point, they lost all of their producers, then their food web would collapse and they would have to start all over. At the end of the game they mapped their food webs and discussed how well the game modeled real situations. We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using different types of models to understand how things work in the real world. Homework is due tomorrow and there will be a short quiz on Friday.

Plant walk

Today we went outside to meet some local plants. We took samples and taped them into our science journals along with notes about each plant. We looked at White Clover, Sour Grass, Common Plantain, and Flowering Dogwood. We recorded their scientific names and some of their common uses. There will be a quiz on Friday about food webs and some vocabulary. We will review on Thursday a bit.

The structure of the food web

Collected homework today. Went over the answers and looked at some of the terms discussed in the reading. Drew a pyramid to show the relative numbers of organisms at each level of the food chain/web. Producers at the bottom, then primary consumers (herbivores), up to secondary and tertiary consumers (top predators). New homework, Read "Energy and Matter" pages 10-14. Answer questions 3 and 4, due on Thursday, September 15th. We had a student from UNC visit our class today, Megan. She will be coming by every monday this trimester.

More Web stuff

Thursday and Friday we got into more food web stuff. We looked at different levels of biological complexity from the level of atoms, molecules, and cells on up to organisms, populations, and communities. We took notes on the parts of the food chain and who eats who. We defined terms like producer, consumer, herbivore, carnivore and top predator. I was gone on Friday and Tonie was the sub. On this day they built food chains based on organisms from a particular ecosystem. Then we looked at organisms that we could add to the chain to make it into a web that was more complex.

Web of Life

Today we modeled a web of life using yarn to show the connections between different organisms. We then looked at the cause and effect of changing parts of the ecosystem. What would happen if certain plants died out from a drought? Or if the top predators were hunted to extinction? We compared our definitions of ecology. We have a new homework assignment. There is a reading packet, They will need to read pages 5-10 of the "Web of Life" and answer questions 3, 4, and 5. These are due on Monday, September 12th.

Survivor!

Collected the homework today. There might be some follow up interviews to find out more about everyone's learning styles. Today we split into groups and imagined that we had been trapped in a remote mountain range. A landslide isolated us and we only had minutes to grab six items to help us survive for days or even weeks. What would you take? You can down load this from Google Docs: Survivor! We then looked at how our choices covered the basic requirements of food, water, and shelter. This launched us into a discussion of  the requirements for all living things. Homework is to complete the question: "Ecology is..." due tomorrow.

First Day of Classes for 2011-2012

First day was a short day. We went over the basics of how the class works and what you need to bring to class each day: notebook, paper, pencil and pen. Homework was to fill out a questionnaire, "What kind of a learner are you?". This is a google doc if you want to download it. This will help me understand what works and what doesn't work for you in class. This questionnaire is due on Tuesday, September 6th.

Electric Circuits and Block Schedule

We built electric circuits today using batteries, bulbs, and wires. We compared parallel and series circuits and how they affect the brightness of the bulbs. We read and took notes on current electricity compared to static electricity and used a water model to understand a simple DC circuit.

Kilowatt Ours

Students started watching the documentary "Kilowatt Ours" on Friday. Check out their website: www.kilowattours.org/. I am out of town and Megan Clinton is the substitute teacher while I am gone. The film is about energy use in the Southeast. It looks into how coal is mined and used to generate electricity. It investigates greener forms of energy production and ways to reduce energy use. We will finish the movie on Monday. Tuesday will be a day for students to finish up their science posters. The posters will be due on Wednesday, March 9th.

Energy and Speed

Yesterday and today we looked at potential and kinetic energy. We examined how an inclined plane can affect the relationship between force and distance in work being done. We practiced speed equations and did some math calculations. Here is the Speed Practice sheet. People are still working on their science experiments and posters.

Science Posters and Energy Notes

Welcome back after a 5 day weekend. Reminder to everyone to work on their science posters. Here is a copy of the Rubric for the Poster. We introduced Energy, focusing on Potential and Kinetic energy. Here are the notes: Energy Notes. We looked at how energy changes it form as it moves from the nuclear reaction in the sun, comes to earth, is absorbed by a plant or a photovoltaic cell and then where it goes from there.

Short Week and a new Unit

We only had two days of class this week with the Parent Teacher Conferences coming up.
Monday we reviewed our Chemistry Tests. Everyone will be doing a science experiment poster for Science Day which is March 11th. The posters will be due on Thursday, March 10th. Students may do a completely new experiment, they can turn their Bird Investigations into a poster, or they can add onto those investigations (like take some data for this time of year and compare it to the data they took in November). We will have some time in class to work on these posters, but only a couple of days. Most of the work will have to take place outside of class.
Tuesday we had an introduction into nuclear fission and nuclear power. This is kicking off our new Physics Unit. We will be focusing on energy and energy production to start with.

Chemistry Unit Test

We had our unit test on Thursday. Most everyone did pretty well. Here is a copy of the test: Chemistry Unit Test. No school on Friday because of a teacher writing day. We will finish up the trimester on Monday and Tuesday before Parent-Teacher conferences. We will be spending time getting ready for Science Day on March 11th. Each student will be making a poster of one of their experiments.

Chemistry Review

We spent the last couple of days reviewing for our end of unit Test. The test will be this Thursday, February 17th. I passed out a Study Guide that we have been going over in class. We had an open notes review quiz last week (Open Notes Chem Review). We will be doing more review and practice tomorrow to get ready for the test. Homework was collected today. No homework except to study for the test.

Chemical Bonding

Yesterday we reviewed some of the basics of atomic structure and how to draw molecules. Today we went to a website called Teacher's Domain. It has a lot of material from WGBH, the Public TV station in Boston. We went through several tutorials on Ionic, Covalent, and Metallic bonding. If you want to check it out, go to www.teachersdomain.org. You can create your own account and join Group ID number 6232 to see what we did. Look through the files in Chemical Bonding, Atomic Structure, and Periodic Table.
Homework was assigned yesterday. Read Chapter 4.2 "Ionic and Covalent Bonding" pp.115-122, answer questions 1, 2, & 5. Due Tuesday, Feb 15th.

Atomic Structure and Periodic Table Tricks

We have been practicing using our Periodic Tables. Using them to map out diagrams of atoms of different elements. How many protons, neutrons, and all the electrons in their various shells. Today we watched some videos from The Periodic Table of Videos, a website from the University of Nottingham, England. We watched the video about Sodium (Na) and saw how reactive it is with water. Pretty cool stuff. Here are some notes on Mysteries of the Periodic Table Revealed-Part Two. We will keep practicing these as we move on to chemical bonding this week. Here is a practice sheet for drawing models of the elements. Atomic Model Practice Page. Here is another cool resource from PBS. It is called Atom Builder and it lets you construct basic atoms by adding protons, neutrons, and electrons. It has some great background information as well.

Dry Ice and Lab Reports

Tuesday and Wednesday we conducted our Dry Ice Investigations, gathered data, and started organizing our notes into Lab Reports. These reports will be due on Friday, February 4th. They need to follow the guidelines in the handout that we used in class. The finished paper needs to be typed/word processed and can be printed out or emailed to me. Homework was collected today and no new reading homework assigned.

Mysteries of the Periodic Table

All the stores in Chapel Hill were out of Dry Ice this morning. So we finished planning the details for our investigations, came up with materials lists and made sure that we knew what we were doing. Got some Dry Ice on the way home today so we can conduct our experiments tomorrow. We took notes on how the Periodic Table can help us figure out the structures of different elements. Here are the notes on Googledocs: Mysteries of the Periodic Table.

Dry Ice Investigation

We started brainstorming questions about Dry Ice that we can answer with investigations. We reviewed systematic observations and experiments. We revisited controls, variables, and quantifiable results. Students broke into small groups to generate and share ideas and to start planning possible investigations. We will continue this process on Friday and conduct our investigations on Monday. We collected homework and new homework was assigned.
Read Chapter 3.2 Introduction to the Periodic Table, pp. 77-85. Answer questions 3, 4, and 5 on page 85. This due Wednesday, February 2nd.

Chemical & Physical Changes

Monday we reviewed the differences between Chemical and Physical changes. We reminded ourselves about the Laws of Conservation of Matter and Conservation of Energy. We went over a list of different types of changes and identified what type of change took place. Here is the Googledoc link to the worksheet on Chemical and Physical Change. We reviewed how Photosynthesis is a chemical change and identified the reactants and the products of the reaction. Homework assigned: Read Chapter 3.1 "Atomic Structure," pp.70-76. Answer questions 4 and 5. For number 4 also explain HOW you got your answer. Due Thursday, January 27.
This is Block Week, so 1st and 3rd period had class today and 2nd period will have it tomorrow. We investigated Water Ice and Dry Ice. We experimented with the two substances and made comparisons. We added energy to each of them, in the form of hot water and made observations. It raised lots of good questions. We will continue experimenting with Dry Ice on Thursday and Friday of this week.

Density

We have been digging into density lately. We have reviewed the formumla: Density = Mass divided by volume (How many grams per cubic centimeter, or milliliter?). The homework introduced the concept and we did some practice math problems in class. Today we measured the density of pennies from before 1982 and after 1982. In 1982 they switched from making pennies out of mostly copper (95% copper and 5% zinc) to making them mostly out of zinc with a copper coating (2.5% copper and 97.5% zinc). Zinc is less dense than copper and we were able to show that by measuring the mass and volume of pennies from before and after 1982. No homework this week, Adolescent Issues and MLK Day have taken up most of our week.

Hot and Cold and Temperature

Today we compared the relative nature of hot and cold and reviewed how temperature is measured. We looked at how average kinetic energy of molecules determines the temperature of a substance, but how hot and cold are relative descriptions. Homework was assigned today, Read Chapter 2.3 Properties of Matter, pp. 53-60 and answer questions 3, 5, 6. These are due on Thursday, January 20th.

Snow Days and US Visits

Between the Snow/Ice Days and all the students visiting Upper School, we haven't had a normal week so far. We started reviewing what we know about temperature and how we measure it. We compared Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin and did some simple conversion problems. This week we should get into more phase changes and energy investigations.

Oil and Water

Friday, we collected homework and went over the answers. All about energy of molecules and states of matter. We then mixed oil and water with drops of food coloring and table salt and observed what then happened. We tried to use terms like density, immiscibile liquids, dissolving and surface tension to describe the results. We will return to these experiments on Monday.

Chemistry & Phase Changes

We have been spending the last three days looking at how molecules behave when energy (heat) is either added or removed. We have looked at the three main states of matter (solid, liquid, gas) and how phase changes take place at specific temperatures. Most of the students got text books for reading assignments. Our first homework is due on Friday, January 7th. To read Chapter 2.2 and answer questions 4, 6, and 8 (for fun). We had a sub on Weds. when I had to go home with a sick child and they looked at how different elements are used in everyday objects.